Those smallies are worth good money. So are the bullfrog tadpoles. You have permission to solicit to sell them...
For sure! Not many producers of smallmouth. Congrats TJ.
On the other hand there is a fly in the oinment regarding the sale of frogs. There's a fungus killing off frogs across the country, and APHIS is proposing required testing (expensive) for a those that sell frogs or have frogs mixed in with the fish they sell:
USFWS Petition to Halt Spread of
Amphibian Disease, Chytrid Fungus
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced it has posted a notice in the Federal Register seeking information concerning the possible designation of all live amphibians or their eggs that are infected with chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or Bd) as “injurious wildlife” under the Lacey Act.
The fungus causes chytridiomycosis, a disease deadly to amphibians, and has been identified as a primary factor leading to the listing of a number of amphibian species as threatened or endangered. If finalized, the designation as “injurious” would require a health certification that live amphibians or their eggs are not infected with chytrid fungus prior to import or transportation across state lines.
Designation of amphibians carrying chytrid fungus as “injurious species” would have many important implications for US producers:
- The inadvertent inclusion of an amphibian, which includes tadpoles, in a load of live aquatic animals would be a violation of the Lacey Act.
- Producers of amphibians would most likely be required to obtain individual certificates of inspection for each interstate movement of amphibians.
- The regulation of chytrid fungus as an “injurious species” bypasses existing regulatory approaches and agencies that regulate the interstate movement of important diseases.
The primary goal of this proposed designation is to prevent the spread of chytrid fungus to wild populations of amphibians, however, scientific investigations* that have looked at the current distribution of chytrid have found the fungus to be widely distributed already in wild amphibians in North America including the East, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest.
The Notice of Inquiry was published in the Federal Register (attached) on September 17, 2010, and explains the chytrid fungus issue and asks the public to provide information on the subject. The submissions will be reviewed and a decision made whether to proceed with a proposed rule or to take no further action.
The NAA urges all members to submit comments opposing the listing of live amphibians infected with the chytrid fungus as injurious wildlife.
For more details, and to submit comments, go to
http://www.regulations.gov under Docket No. FWS-R9-FHC-2009-0093. The public will have until December 16, 2010, to provide information on the subject of the petition.
* Ouellet, M et al (2005) Historical Evidence of Widespread Chytrid Infection in North American Amphibian Populations. Conservation Biology 19:1431-1441.
Muths, E. et al. (2008) Distribution and environmental limitations of an amphibian pathogen in the Rocky Mountains, USA. Biological Conservation 141:1484-1492.
Pearl, C. A. (2007) Occurrence of the Amphibian Pathogen Batrachochytrium Dendrobatidis in the Pacific Northwest. Journal of Herpetology 41(1):145-149.
